Only in Africa: A Day in the Life of a Racer…

…Only in Africa.

By 9:30am, all three Americans are in the car waiting for Pastor.  He comes around to my door, opens it and tells me his wife is coming.  I scoot over to the middle as Jessica enters and puts their 18 month old baby boy, Daniel, on her lap.  From the other side, another African male, whose name I cannot recall, is looking at Dex with an unusual expression as he stares into the car.  Pastor announces that this man, too, is coming with us and we must squeeze everyone into the backseat.

Let me describe this for you:

Four fully grown adults, including a “healthy” African woman, attempt to fit themselves into the backseat of a Toyota Corolla hatchback.  I slide forward to the edge of the middle seat so as to allow the other three as much room as possible.  I remain in this position – with my left butt cheek barely on the seat, my right one in mid air and half of my weight shifted to my left leg – for an hour.  I can’t feel my toes, foot or lower leg after 20 minutes; at an hour, it has become painful.  Thankfully, this is when Pastor pulls over to allow our African friend to move to the hatchback area giving the rest of us space.  

About 20 minutes later, we are pulled over for speeding.

It was quickly evident by the reactions of Pastor, Jessica & our African friend, that having a human being in the hatchback was a big “no-no.”  He immediately “ducked & covered” himself with a blanket.  As the pastor continued to talk to the po-po outside of the car, our African friend wiggled his way down to a lying position and covered himself completely with the blanket.  

I was unaware of it, but Jessica had started breastfeeding Daniel prior to being pulled over.  As I turned toward her, though, to look back at our African friend, she turned in to me to do the same.  Her breast came free of Daniel’s mouth and I came face-to…breast…with it.  It’s not unusual or awkward anymore to witness women shamelessly breastfeeding their children in public around the world, but it was a little awkward to have one staring me in the face!

 

…Only in Africa.

All got settled with the police officer & we continued tearing down the pothole filled, uneven, African roads at average speeds falling between 60 & 70mph.  About an hour later, we came skidding into Nyololo, the town of the sister church, nearly leaving the undercarriage of the car on the asphalt due to failing to slow down for the series of three small speed bumps, positioned about a few feet apart from each other, which results in one large speed bump.  We wind our way through the dirt road main street, turn through a small field of once-living-but-now-dried-up-by-the-sun stalks of some sort of crop and around to a large building where we park the car.  It is the only car visible in the entire area.

The large building is made of handmade bricks held together by, what I assume is, a mix of cement and mud.  Sounds of Swahili words being sung without the aide of a microphone or instruments (save, one drum) drift out of the paneless windows and doorless doorways.  We are led to another brick building a few feet from the church.  If you can picture what the ruins of a fort or old building look like, you’ll have a good picture of this place.  We pass through a curtain hung on a line serving as the door to the ruins and immediately turn right, into a cavernous room with no rooftop, but filled with two couches, a couple of chairs, two small tables and a dish hutch.  It’s inviting.  

Tea, eggs and chips (fries) are offered to us with loving hearts & gracious hands.  We are humbly joyous as we consume the humble offering and, afterwards, are led back to the larger building where that wonderful, beautiful a capella African worship is taking place.

 

The worship does not end as the Mzungus walk in to the building, though the characteristic shameless and open staring with mixed expressions of curiosity and disbelief found throughout the African culture occur.  Instead, the worship continues on unphased and unhindered.  The building was constructed with the vision of housing 700 people.  A group of, maybe, 50 sit before us.  But, these people are freely and devotedly worshiping Father with all they have.  There is a young boy using two truncated and cleaned up branches from a bush to beat on an African drum, made of what I assume is some kind of animal skin pinned around a round wooden ring.  As one song ends, another begins with the solo voice of a man, woman or child boldly stepping out to lead their fellow believers in a praise of worship to the Lord.  Sometimes the song is relatively slow, with long notes broadened by the depth of the harmonies.  But, most of the time, the song is lively with a distinct African beat that is infectious and not only finds the congregation dancing, jumping, swaying, stomping, clapping or any number of  other movements, but the Mzungus and pastors, as well.  

There was no sound system, no band, only voices and one makeshift drum.   

And I loved it.  I found myself wishing that I’d been able to be a part of more churches like this one during my time on this continent. (check out the video (at the end of this post) of some of the worship from that day!)

 

As church ends, we are corralled back into the ruins where a fantastic little lunch of rice, chicken, beans, greens and sodas awaits us.    

Eventually, we are taken to the government officials’ office.  This is a normal occurrence on the Race in African countries.  We really are appreciated for simply coming and sharing at the villages and many of the governments, schools, churches, hospitals or wherever we’re visiting want us to sign the “visitors books.”  As we walk the short distance from the church to the government office we pass by a lady balancing a basket of fried chicken feet on her head.  We thought this amusing, but she looked at us as if it were no big deal.  On approaching the office, we notice a rather large crowd gathered.  Slightly unsettled, not knowing whether or not this “gathering” was for our sake or not, we continue approaching and discover with relief that it is not for our sake.  It was some kind city council or town hall meeting.  Now, obviously, we don’t know Kiswahili, but we’re not able to get in to the building.  So, we kind of zone out as the meeting continues on and begin to people watch.  Unfortunately, we probably weren’t being “good missionaries” or even Christians, at this point.  To our amusement, we saw Alf-Alfa, Medusa and a man in a plaid flannel shirt tucked in to light brown, pin-striped britches secured by two, yes…TWO, belts.  The pants had a parallel set of belt loops.  

The meeting closes and people begin to disperse while we are led in to the building and directed to an office in the back.  Chairs are pulled in and we’re beckoned to sit.  We are introduced to the Chairman, introduce ourselves and thank the Chairman for allowing us to come to his little village and welcoming us so warmly.  After all of this, Pastor & the Chairman engage in a conversation in Swahili.  

At one point, the pastor of Nyololo IPC congregation pipes in.  Becca and I have once again kind of zoned out, but our attention is grabbed when this new voice enters.  We turn toward the pastor, but are not prepared for what succeeds in stealing our attention.  Through the window directly behind the pastor, we witness a man stand up from what looks to be a squatting position and then, ever so casually, pull up his pants.  In public!

This man has dropped his pants, for some reason we still don’t know…in public!  

I turn to Becca, who has uttered a small chuckle and she asks, “did you just …?” “Yep! Sure did.” I reply.  Becca secretly determines not to shake this particular man’s hand upon exiting and I secretly wonder if we will see evidence of his pantsless squatting adventure lying out on the open ground.  I even search for it when we stand up to leave and as we exit the building.  Luckily, we were not subjected to my private wonders, but Becca did have to shake Mr. No Pants’ hand. *evil laugh*

We head back to the church in preparation to leave.  I grab my purse out of the car and head to the bathroom.  The small handmade brick building has two sides; one for men and the other for women.  Walking around to the women’s side, I nearly walked straight in to a hole cut out of cement.  It’s situated just left of center of a doorless entry.  I chuckle slightly, set my purse, water bottle and jacket just outside the entryway to ward off any other potential potty visitors and assume the position over the hole.  Looking out ahead of me I realize that there is a footpath not 10 feet away where any one walking by not only has a clear view of the potty visitor, but a close one.  And I secretly wondered if conversations are ever held by friends who “pass” each other in this way.
 
“Hey! what’ch’a up to?”  
“Oh, you know…just squattin’…takin’ care of business.”

Only in Africa…